Websites and a good pair of blue jeans have something in common. Unless we ask for validation, we aren’t really sure if either looks good. We may love how we look in tight jeans or straight leg or shredded knees jeans but have no idea if the cut is flattering or is the right choice for a date or meeting someone for the first time. The same is true for owning a website. We may love the design and think our web designer made choices that are in our best interests, but the truth is that unless your website is designed, built and tested by a professional with years of experience and skills out the wazoo, you have no valid…

If you rely on tools to test your website or application, you may never find what confused your users. Automated tools can show where problems are found within the code. Tools can look for specific pages and provide insights into how long users remain on a page and where they go next. However, they don’t have any idea why humans make the choices they do. SEO tools, page speed tools, mobile emulation software, and accessibility testing tools are not programmed to know what to do on a bad day when the car breaks down on the way to work and the driver must search for a local automotive service business. If you’re the owner of an automotive service station website, you need…

If you’re shopping for a website audit, it may surprise you to learn there are several types, methodologies and goals to consider. From a quick five-second user test to an in-depth full site audit, each one provides valuable information. The kind of information a company is looking for helps to determine the scope of a site audit. A quick “what do you think of my website?” approach helps the ego but isn’t helpful if the goal is to understand if the user interface is rendering properly on an iPhone on a park mountain while hiking a trail at dusk. That would be a great task scenario for an app, or web page readability test for someone wearing prescription glasses that…

AEO is one of the latest buzzwords used by digital marketers focused on search engine rank. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) brings SEO one step closer to usability and accessibility territories. I was invited to substitute for Marie Hayes, a long time friend in the SEO industry, for a series of webinars out of SEMRush, makers of SEO tools, training and well written educational blog. The topic is AEO for SEO, which would normally not be in my wheelhouse. However, the master mind of the website series, Jason Barnard, in his investigation into AEO, realized that optimization for answers is powerless without adding human elements to the search engine algorithms. In other words, this is a continuation, if not a robust…